Stuff blows up, cars go fast, so what’s not to love?
On feature films, you get up to 5 miscues; that is, you can miss four stunts in the whole scene before the director calls a reshoot. You therefore don’t have to turn in a perfect performance to get credit. You are awarded up to five stars for “stringing” stunt points. Stringing is how many consecutive stunts you can perform within a certain period of time, so keeping your string going while hitting your next target and keeping the vehicle stable is the challenge. Star levels unlock awards, achievements, color customization. I’ve ruined scenes and had to do reshoots, yet still unlocked something.
The achievements are entertaining as well. I got one called “Turtle” for flipping my car (not on purpose, but it was cool) and another called “Wings” for jump stunts and hang time. My favorite is “Death Wish.” You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself. Suffice to say, even if you suck at the game, you get rewarded hilariously.
Additional features included commercials and other freelance gigs on which you can earn extra experience toward unlocking achievements, extra levels, and vehicles in the Constructor set. You can build your own stunt set in a dirt ring, upload it, and share with your friends, or just test your abilities. There are a series of Quick Fixes, which are a lineup of standalone scenes on which you can practice your skills and unlock the Director fixes, guided standalones with the stunt coordinator and his trusty megaphone. Between each feature, you also unlock Rehearsals, where you learn and practice particular stunts needed for the upcoming film, also under the able tutelage of the coordinator. What’s nice about the Constructor Arena, Quick Fixes, Commercials, and other sidelines, is that if/when you get stuck or frustrated with the Career Mode feature film scenes, you can go play around elsewhere for awhile until you get your mojo back. You drive a variety of vehicles, which seemed to handle fairly realistically; after playing Forza Motorsport and PGR3 for weeks, I thought Stuntman felt familiar rather than unwieldy. The dirt bikes are a little light on the stick as you’d expect, being a lighter vehicle, but with a little practice they’re manageable, but I’d suggest practicing your 180s before you really need them; the pickups are positively clunky. The cars generally handle like you’d expect, though some, like the cop cars, take more getting used to than, say, the sports cars. The missile truck was one of my favorites, and a nitro rocket boost in some scenes was really fun to play.
You also drive on various terrains with all the vehicular challenges entail--volcanic lava floes down a mountain, rocky, dusty desert, and ice roads. The environment becomes as much an actor in a scene as the other stunt drivers and obstacles; dust flies up, smoke and debris from explosions obscure your vision and crack your windshield. The rest of the damage modeling is cool, too; I jumped my cop car up an asphalt ramp, landed, dropped down, and spun out into a 180--and the passenger door flew open, eventually blew off, the trunk dented in and upwards, and the back window blew out in the center, just like real automotive safety glass.
I rented Stuntman because I wasn’t sure that I’d care, frankly, but I enjoyed it so much, and I have a few pesky levels (the Boat Jump standalone in particular chaps me) that I now have personal quests to master, so I’m actually going to buy a (used) copy. It does seem like it could be kind of short, but I think the replay value comes from trying to top your own scores, string more stunts as you gain skill, and get all five stars in each scene. It’s a good one to have on the shelf to come back to periodically when you’re bored with shooting at aliens and just want a few good old-fashioned explosions.